They get to make art instead of doing their stressful yuppie jobs.  They get to forge emotional bonds with people and create a sense of community, which is lacking in their daily lives, since they spend all their time working.  The men get to be like "real" men -men who do construction and survive in extreme conditions (temperatures at Burning Man can range from 40 degrees at night to over 100 during the day).  But they still get to cross dress and wear face paint.  They get to be everything their metrosexual, over-worked, under-loved selves don't get to be the rest of the year.  Being the judgmental person that I am, I figured these people needed to spend a little more time taking care of themselves the rest of the year and not channel all that emotional need into a week long escapist fantasyland.  That being said, I'm up for trying just about anything, and sometimes I like have actual experiences behind my judgments.  I also happen to have a yuppie boyfriend who had become medium-level obsessed with Burning Man two years previous.

Burning Man takes place for a week each year some time between August and September out on a remote dry alkali lake bed in Nevada.  There is no plant life, no animals, and no internet service, and part of the deal with the state is that when the event is over, no trace is left that it ever took place.  With some exceptions for art installations involving additional prep time, Black Rock City (population 40,000) builds and then immolates itself in a week.  On the last day, the Man (a big wooden structure shaped like a dude) is set on fire and everyone watches it burn.  Aside from the "Burning" of the "Man" part, this is not a spectator event - all attendees are encouraged to participate in some way - making sculptures, making body art, hosting yoga, giving out free food and alcohol (you can't buy or sell anything at Burning Man, but gifting things is encouraged), whatever you can do to enhance everyone's experience (that "experience" is collectively decided as it goes along).

But then as the city builds itself up, and as a fine crust from sand and sun covers my body, it becomes more fun.  There's an undercurrent of unselfconscious nerdy that's hard to resist, educated under-class vs. yuppie overlord be damned, and a genuine desire to use all the tools at your disposal to show everyone around you a good time.  A few camps down from us is a guy named Bad-Ass who is handing out thousands of Lightsabers for a battle royale that is to take place a few nights later.  Somewhere farther out is a working Thunderdome.  Most people bike to explore, but a limited number of "art cars" zip around at five miles an hour, giving rides to whomever wants one, so long as they don't care where they're going. The year before, my boyfriend had been kidnapped by a mammoth pirate ship art car, forced to drink shots, then made to walk to the plank.

After the first few days, I feel like I'm inside a big video game, especially at night.  We cruise around in silly fur-covered outfits, coming across random people and random massive break beat dance parties (with people actually dancing, by the way, not trying to look cool).  There are freak dust storms and women defying them in futuristic goggles.  There are desperate hunts for port-a-potties and outbreaks of dysentery.  There are men in giant bunny outfits, hot naked cyclists, parachuters falling from the sky, and flame-throwers mounted to pretty much every available surface. And there are bad guys too, or at least, naughty.  One came up to our art car (a big CD shaped smiley face) and tried to hand us a "present" that was really a "vibrator." Another guy approached us one night and offered to put acid on the driver's tongue if he would give his sick girlfriend a ride back to their camp. Knowing full well that there are cops everywhere trying to make money for the government from drug busts (not to mention the explicit uncoolness of the offer), we started running the other way as fast as the 5 mile per hour speed limit would allow. Acid-guy said never-mind and we gave him a ride anyway. It turned out his girlfriend was at that so-drunk-I-wish-I-was-dead stage, so we were all glad we gave him a second chance. It's actually surprising what a small percentage of the Black Rock City population is conniving cops, lecherous men, and scrawny bike thieves, considering how big the draw is - tens out thousands of happy, trusting, generous, blissed-out yuppie-hippie-survivalist-artists.  Even so, you need a good bad guy, and they add to the experience.

At the end of the week I realized that I had fun.  Yes, a disproportionate percentage of the people attending were rich yuppies, but they were there to have a good time and were doing a good job of it.

And some of them made some pretty kick-ass art.  Yes, a lot of money goes into burning man, but if you want to spend your money on art in the desert, who am I to judge?  I realized how elitist it was of me to think only artists should be allowed to make art and that yuppies should only be allowed to make money.  And as for the drugs, I saw a little of it but mostly it was an "only if you want to" and "keep it private" sort of thing.It didn't seem to be an integral or even entirely pervasive aspect to the event, which is a pretty widely held misconception.  So while I am not missing the thing that the die-hards are missing that make them need Burning Man so badly, I would recommend to anyone to try it once.  You might be surprised how much you like it.